The Joyride

by

Billy Reed

The Joyride, a luxury ship, travels around the Pacific Ocean chiefly for the sake of pleasure. It totes passengers from San Francisco, through the Panama Sea, to Rio de Janiero and back. The Joyride measures a half mile long and an acre wide. Mounted on both the starboard and portside are two massive turbines. It looks vaguely like a gargantuan needle with the top of the eye missing. This allows for other small sea-fairing vessels to dock if necessary. Inside there are two hundred luxury suites. Inside there is a three dimensional television dome in which almost any dream can come true. The dome uses three dimensional technology to simulate flying or traveling to the bottom of the ocean, or even battling mutant three-eyed grizzly monkeys. There is a cargo transport that runs from the docking bay to the storage hold. The cargo transport resembles a small train and runs on electricity supplied by the rails. The prow houses a nine foot deep swimming pool. Dining includes two McDonald's, a Pizza Hut, one Dairy Queen, a Hershey's store and mall. For entertainment there is an opera house and a movie theater. On deck there is a trampoline room with a one hundred square foot trampoline. Soon you will see the fate of the Joyride.

Puella Regal

Puella Regal, a passenger on The Joyride, is on a cruise around the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. She is twenty-one years old and well acquainted with the captain of the ship. Puella is a distant relative of Harry Regal, president of the U.S. from 2044 to 2052. She is from San Diego, California. There she lives on an estate with her five brothers and two sisters. Puella has long, flowing, blonde hair which she keeps in a sole ponytail. Usually dressing in luxurious clothing, Puella prefers long silk dresses with a high neckline. She drives a 2085 Lamborghini Gallardo, only a year old, which she is taking on the trip to ride around in Rio de Janeiro. Puella could have brought her antique 2010 Dodge Viper but she wasn't about to pay $10,000 to get it fixed if it gets scratched. She likes the prospect of a cruise but isn't so sure about crossing the Panama Sea. When Panama was blown off the face of the earth by a nuclear bomb in 2058 the radioactivity levels went off the charts. Since then the chance of a shark becoming mutated increased to 70%. The guest flier she had received in her cabin assured her there was nothing to fear, but Puella is skeptical. She is very kind and loves flying creatures, especially her beloved pet dodo bird, Fluffer. Dodo birds had been thought extinct but a whole colony had been found in a cave on Hawaii!

Panama Sea

The main place in my story is the Panama Sea. It is a rather sinister place at night when the water glows an extremely bright aqua-marine hue. At the exact place that the bomb touched the land there is an enormous funnel of water zooming seven miles straight into the clouds. The great beast sucks in any cloud, airplane, or anything that comes too close. It is said that the ghosts of those who died in the explosion lurk ominously over the whole sea trying to avenge their deaths. It is also said that if any part of one of the ghosts touches the water they will become visible. One mad sea captain said he saw one and when he came back to land he was so crazed he would sprint for his life and yell, "He's after me!" As an experiment some scientists tried him in the 2084 Paralympics and he won every race by at least ten seconds! Sticking out of the radioactive water are giant pieces of rock resembling a mutant shark sticking its claws through a blue pane of glass. The fearsome looking water will fry anything that touches it, including metal, steel, platinum, titanium, or anything else that gets too close. If not outfitted with at least three feet of radio gel an average cruise ship can be reduced to nothing in about an hour. What the captain of The Joyride doesn't know is that the day The Joyride left the dock it was discovered that all radioactively-mutated creatures are attracted to radio gel!

Captain Jax Moore

Jax is one year older than Puella and is in charge of The Joyride. As I have mentioned before Puella is well acquainted with Captain Jax. He has a secret crush on Puella and has been looking for a chance to go on a date ever since he met her two years back. Jax has brown hair and a pair of sideburns which he treasures and grooms constantly. His eyes are the exact same color as his dark grey uniform. Jax wears tall black boots and long black gloves and carries a long knife in case he needs to cut something in an emergency. Jax has never been through the Panama Sea before and doesn't like having the responsibility of making sure that every passenger is safe, especially Puella. Jax is a collector of antique LEGO Hero Factory sets and has succeeded in collecting the 4.0 waves 1 and 2.

Dream: The Courageous

"Man, I don't recall being this tired after a day's work before," Jax says as he enters his cabin. "Good evening Stormer," he says sleepily to the Hero Factory action figure on display in his room. "It is time for me to hit the sack."

As he fades off to dreamland he hears someone yelling, "Come back here swabby!" He looks around himself to see that he's standing in a bar filled with cigarette smoke and the smell of tobacco. All the sudden a monkey dressed like a pirate wielding a cocked revolver runs between his legs. Then a tall man in a red coat bursts through the doors.

"Who, Cappin' Vince? Shooo, he don't got no problem, he got a bad temper is what he got!"

"Oh," says Jax as he strides over to the bar. Captain Vince brushes by holding the monkey by the tail.

"I thought I told you not to come to the bar today," the captain said to the monkey, "I got plans!"

Just then the monkey jumps out of Captain Vince's arms onto Jax. The bar erupts into gunfire from Captain Vince who is fed up with this bozo who's trying to steal his monkey. Jax is panicking, the monkey is riding on his back shooting its pistol in the air, and everyone else is either diving for cover or yelling and cheering. The breakout soon turns into a first rate riot. People start throwing each other over the bar. Random brawls break out, and there is a noise of shattering glass as the shelf holding the rum topples over. The crowd is thick around Jax and he can't see anything. Captain Vince seizes his chance and knocks Jax across the head with a wine bottle. The dream fades away from Jax's view and he finds himself back in his cabin.

"Ouch," Jax remarks, "Talk about a splitting headache!" He glances across the room and sees the time, 7:30 AM. "Man, I'm going to be late!" Jax gets up and his day begins.